


Things They Never Told Us

by Illume



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Childhood Memories, Dean Winchester Deserves Better, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Dean Winchester is Sam Winchester's Parent, Gen, Hope, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Letters, Memories, Mentions of neglect, Minor Castiel/Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Season/Series 15, early season 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28976847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illume/pseuds/Illume
Summary: A letter from Sam Winchester to his brother as he looks at him losing hope in everything they've done over the past 15 years.Because some things are too small and too important for them to be fake.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Things They Never Told Us

There are some things no one told us about growing up the way we did.

It’s always about the warning. The impending fear of giving yourself to someone so deeply that they become your everything and you can no longer move on without them. The poorly concealed anger looming just under the surface whenever you think back of the empty look that stared back into our childhood eyes. Everything comes down to a warning about what we shouldn’t become; what we shouldn’t let anyone do to us again.

What they tell us is that it all comes down to “get out” or “get used to it”. With the first, you need to take only what you can carry and leave everything else behind. With the second, you have to hold onto everything that you have left.

I got out. You got used to it. I couldn’t carry you with me. You couldn’t hold onto me.

How much did I resent you for not following behind? Almost as much as you resented me for leaving you behind.

But then they never tell you about what comes after.

They never tell you about what I would have to do after I left; or what would you do if things began slipping from your fingers.

When my love language became staying and yours became letting go. All we had left was each other. And maybe that was enough.

The quiet late nights drinking a beer and pretending this was normal. The small moment between getting to a diner and ordering our food, before we began talking about whatever guts and gunpowder we had to look forward to that day. The times you’d quietly tell me a story so I would fall asleep again like when we were children; only for neither of us to mention it again.

But then there were the times where I couldn’t handle it anymore and the warnings began flaring back again. And then I would run; and you would close into the only place that you had been able to call home: yourself. And that was when I was reminded that neither of us moved on from it. Neither of us could escape what we lived.

It wasn’t the monsters, the ghouls, the ghosts. This wasn’t something we could salt and burn and watch it as it faded into harmless ashes. This was scorched into us, into what we became and we would always be. We are that pain, and that anger and that fear. We will always be those small children fending from the cold with the stove on and the yellowed motel sheets bundled around us. We will always be the children disappointed that their father’s best was so little.

But there is always so much more.

Because you became the parent I thought I’d lost. And the friend our lives never allowed us to make. And the hero that I looked up to. You were the kid who was willing to go hungry when I ate and go cold so I could have a new coat. You were the one who would take the screaming and the drunken words that were as sharp as the glass that would hit the wall behind you; all because I couldn’t take it anymore. You are the man that still thinks I didn’t notice all of it and has never mentioned it once, even in our worst fights.

How can you fake that? How can that be all the creation of a capricious creature in look of petty entertainment? The tiny details, the quirks, the accidental ticks you’ve fallen into over the years?

All those rom-com lines you’ve secretly memorized. The way that you grip the remote tighter whenever someone tries to grab it, even as you let out a snore. The way that you hum to pop songs when you’re too sleep deprived to notice. The way that you adopt every child that looks as lost as we once were, but panic at the thought of one of them sharing your blood. The way that you look at Cas’ lips without even realizing I’m standing right there. The way that you stutter when I try to talk about that.

All those things dad didn’t train into you or out of you. The things that come more natural to you than even hunting.

We didn’t know we would have to accept that we couldn’t outrun or change the way we were trained and the way we were stirred. But we also didn’t know how to recognize the things that came from ourselves.

So many things they never told us about growing up the way that we did.

And how can I tell them to you now and have you believe me?

How can I convince you of all the real things I can see only by looking at the home we’ve built and the family we’ve made?

I can’t.

But you can call this a wishful thought. The smallest of chances.

Because maybe one day you will find it, and maybe one day you will read it. And maybe that day, maybe you’ll be ready to accept that the small things, the important things, that’s what matters. That is real.

— Sammy.


End file.
